Right Hand Drive Guys Mar 21, 2026

Live From HD Werks In Boca Raton - EP.175

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Concept

right hand drives

A right-hand drive car has the steering wheel on the right side instead of the left. That’s common in countries like the UK and Japan, and it can affect how the car is set up for driving.

Concept

long-term builds

That means the car project isn’t a quick fix—it takes a long time. Shops do this when the work is bigger and needs more careful planning.

Concept

nut and bolt restorations

This is the most thorough kind of restoration. They take the car apart almost completely, then rebuild it carefully so it comes out right.

Concept

“Customer spec” means the restoration/build is tailored to what the owner wants—such as originality level, performance goals, and acceptable tradeoffs. It’s a key idea because two restorations of the same car can end up very different depending on the spec.

Concept

restoration-oriented

Restoration-oriented means the goal is to bring the car back to how it used to be. That can include making it look and feel more original, not just faster.

Concept

interiors

Interiors means the inside of the car—like seats and upholstery. Restoring the interior can make the whole car feel and look much better.

Concept

subbing out

“Subbing out” means sending some work to another shop or specialist. It’s common when a project needs skills or tools your shop doesn’t have.

Term

painting

“Painting” means repainting the car’s surfaces. Getting it right takes careful prep and matching the color so it looks smooth and consistent.

Concept

tune remotely

Remote tuning is when someone adjusts your car’s computer settings from a distance. They connect to the car’s computer and change the tune so the engine runs the way they want.

Concept

break-in

Break-in is the first period of driving after the car is rebuilt or heavily modified. It’s about easing the engine into normal use so parts wear in the right way.

Term

face-map

A face-map is a tuning step where the computer’s settings are mapped so the car responds correctly. Different shops may use the term a little differently depending on the car.

Concept

dyno ready

Dyno ready means the car is set up so it can be tested on a dyno safely. The shop makes sure the engine and computer are working correctly before running power tests.

Term

first coat

Paint is usually applied in layers. The first layer can look darker or different, and the real color shows up after the next coats are added.

Term

suspension work

Suspension work means fixing or upgrading the parts that control how the car rides and handles. If it’s worn out, the car can feel bouncy, pull, or wear tires faster.

Term

pre-purchase inspection

A pre-purchase inspection is when a shop checks a car before you buy it. They look for problems you might not notice, so you don’t get surprised after you hand over the money.

Part

engine bay

The engine bay is the area under the hood where the engine sits. Painting it is mostly about making it look clean and helping protect metal from rust.

Term

painter

An automotive painter is the person who applies the paint so the car looks right. They also do the prep work first, because paint won’t look good if the surface isn’t ready.

Term

bodywork

Bodywork is fixing the car’s outer sheet metal—like dents or damage from bumps. After the metal is fixed and smoothed out, the car can be painted properly.

Concept

time management and problem solving

They boil it down to two things: staying organized with your time and figuring out problems when they happen. That’s what helps a shop finish the job instead of getting stuck.

Brand

Audi

Audi is the car brand mentioned as an example. The speaker’s point is that working on different brands isn’t totally different—you still deal with the same basic systems.

Term

valve cover

The valve cover is a cover on top of the engine that helps keep oil in and protects the moving parts underneath. People often paint it because it’s easy to see.

Concept

proof of concept

A “proof of concept” is basically a test project. It’s meant to show that an idea works, not necessarily to be the final, perfect version.

Concept

client experience

“Client experience” refers to how the customer feels throughout the process—communication, transparency, updates, and overall service. The speaker emphasizes that a great experience is as important as the final car itself, especially in a build/customization shop setting.

Concept

Alibaba

Alibaba is a website where you can buy parts from different sellers, sometimes at lower prices. The shop is saying their costs and margins aren’t the same as what you see online.

Concept

markup

Markup is the added amount a business charges above its cost to cover labor, overhead, risk, and profit. The segment is discussing why a shop’s price can be higher than what a customer finds online, especially when sourcing is difficult.

Company

DHL

DHL is a shipping company that handles international deliveries. The concern is that they may charge you extra fees and expect payment quickly.

Term

rust bucket

A “rust bucket” is a car that’s badly rusted. It usually means fixing it can be expensive and may not turn out as well as starting with a cleaner car.

Term

quarter panel

The quarter panel is the big outer metal panel near the wheel. If it’s damaged, it can be hard to fix so the car looks and lines up correctly.

Term

red flag

A “red flag” is a warning sign. It means something about the car doesn’t add up, and you should be more suspicious before you buy.

Part

Bushings

Bushings are the soft parts in the suspension that help smooth out movement. If they’re worn out, the car can feel loose or clunky, and it’s not something you want to ignore.

Term

single turbo

Single turbo means one turbocharger is doing the boosting. They’re saying it’s simpler to service and can be better for making very high power.

Part

exhaust

Exhaust is the system that routes gases out of the engine. People modify it to change the sound and sometimes the performance.

LIVE

Hey, and welcome back to the next episode

of the Right Hand Drive Guys podcast.

The podcast for guys who like right hand drives.

I'm Bobby and I am here today with Peter and Dre

and we are live from the legendary HD works.

What's up guys?

What's up, thanks for having us.

Thanks for coming to Florida.

Yeah, absolutely.

It was one of those things where if you've been listening

to the show, you know that Peter came on

and he did a remote interview type thing

and I was like, I'm in the area.

We should just do it for real

because it always flows so much better when you're in person.

Yeah, and definitely you was using a potato phone that day.

I'm sorry.

So, I mean for like just real quick, you know,

for anybody that didn't hear your first episode

or you know, it's kind of like what even is HD works?

Give us like just a little rundown

of what you guys are doing inside of this.

Like so real quick though, when you pull up,

it seems like, you know, a smaller size garage,

you know, has a few bay doors and whatnot.

But once you come in, you start to realize

there are quite a few rooms full of cars.

Like it feels like it doesn't really end, you know.

So on that note, yeah, like what is up with this place, man?

Yeah, we're building right now.

We're doing a lot of long-term builds.

We're doing a lot of comprehensive restorations,

you know, like basically nut and bolt restorations

where we take the entire car apart

and build them to the customer spec.

I mean, that's really the most condensed form

I can explain to you, really.

But you know, we do a lot of in-between stuff too.

We do some, you know, when the cars come in,

they will need just basic maintenance.

We'll do that all the way from, you know,

like I said, window out restoration.

So there's a lot of room to do a lot of different things in there.

But we do a lot of just project work.

That's what we love to do and that's what I love to do.

I know Dre likes to do that too.

Stuff that's a little bit more long-term,

that's a little bit more creative

and gives us time to let the process

just be a little bit more organic with the cars themselves.

Because everything, we might have an idea on paper

of what we want to do and what the client wants to do.

But they always kind of take a turn,

however they're going to turn, right?

Whether it be performance-oriented

or just more restoration-oriented or interiors

or whatever it is or a combination of both,

color coordination with the car

and they take a mind of its own.

So it's really hard to get an exact picture right off Rip

when we talk to clients.

But the beauty of it is letting them just kind of flow

into whatever they're going to flow into.

And those projects are the best at the end.

They're the ones that we're the most proud of at the end.

So, I mean, clearly, obviously,

you must be subbing out a lot.

There's no way that you're doing start to finish

inside of this place.

Well, no.

The only thing I don't do here is interior.

I just don't know how to sew nor does Dre or Corey.

Oh, come on.

That's it, man.

So you're painting here, are you tuning here?

We tune remotely.

Roberto actually helps us do the tuning portion of it.

He's very local to us.

We've worked together for a very long time.

So we do all the wiring in-house.

We do all the installation of literally everything,

the entire build up until the last moment

where it just get turned up a little bit.

And that's it.

We do the break-in, we do the start-up,

I do the face-map.

I mean, literally down to the, just need to turn it up.

Can you help me?

And Roberto does that.

I just don't have the brain capacity to sell it.

To wear that hat as well.

You're probably really good at it.

You know what I mean?

I'm good at a lot of stuff.

I can get it to a point where it's 80%.

And that's all I care about for the mechanical end of it

where we can drive it around and vet everything

and make sure they're dyno ready

and then we just, we sub it out.

We have a dyno in-house.

And then everything else though,

we just, it's two and a half guys here, man.

Wow.

And so you're painting them here too.

I think I saw Corey out there painting a black 34.

Yep, he's doing a midnight purple car as we speak.

Wow, that's crazy to think.

I'm looking at that thinking that

he's painting a standard black 34,

but really that's the first coat, right?

That's just what they look like.

That's midnight purple for you.

Like it's a very hyped up color in my opinion, right?

It's, they're just black though.

Like really, if you just look at them

and like unless the sun is just perfect

and it's like the perfect hour at four o'clock or whatever,

like that's the only time they're gonna look like that.

Like what you see on Instagram,

what you see in the pictures,

they just look black honestly, they just look black.

Yeah, the LV4 especially.

The other, the LXO is a little bit more vibrant

for a lot more like contrast naturally

because I think it has less pigments to pull it away.

Right now it just looks black though.

And so Dre, like what do you do here?

Because there's so many moving parts, right?

Like there's so much happening.

Like what is your part in that?

Basically everything that isn't paint or wiring.

I pretty much do all the engine assembly, suspension work,

any of the maintenance that comes in for just like quick stuff.

Yeah, you probably, we probably gotta get a little closer

just cause it's not, no you're good.

I'll just add it this out, no big deal.

Okay, so just from anywhere between the maintenance stuff

where people bring the car in for like a pre-purchase inspection

and post-purchase inspection or service

to building the actual cars.

I mean, doing all the suspension work, engine assembly,

like transmission stuff like that.

I'm serviced to a couple of transmissions so far.

And then anything else, I mean, if you need your-

That's pretty cool.

Wheels fitted up to the car and like all that stuff.

Wow, so yeah, I mean, I guess having,

like you said, a smaller team,

everybody does have to be well-versed in everything

in order for progress to continue.

Yeah, it's very hard to,

it would be really hard to like have one person

do one thing all the time.

Like it would just be impossible.

Like we all have to kind of help each other out in ways like,

if it was just me, it would just take me,

you know, 15 years to do one car, right?

But now we have to like,

I have to share my responsibilities with everybody

and we work together, right?

So I might need to fab something quick for him

or Corey might need to paint something real quick

to kind of get that particular job done.

Whatever it is, we have morning meetings,

but we work really well together.

We've been together a very long time.

It just coalesces into something that we,

it's easy, easy for the three of us to work together.

We've tried other people, we've tried to integrate more

because we're all like, I wouldn't say overwhelmed

with work, even though we are.

I don't know, man, walking around here

and seeing all the cars.

It's intimidating, like how the hell did they do all that?

And I get that, but it just,

we do a little bit at a time and we bite off

as much as we can chew in that moment, right?

And then tomorrow's another day and we move forward

and that's it.

But we all help each other out.

We've tried to integrate people, it just doesn't work.

It just creates, like I was talking to you today

a little bit, it creates more work for ourselves, right?

To micromanage them and make sure they're doing it up

to our standards and the way that we love to do stuff.

And because it just, it can't be any other way.

We can't go backwards now, right?

Which is what we've always wanted to,

it can't go backwards, you can't really unravel the quality.

Because you create a standard now.

Yeah, and half the time when people try to come on board

and think that they can help us,

they're really just like looking at it as just another job.

You have to look at it as something you're passionate about

so you can take care of everybody's individual needs per build.

You can't just like throw one nameplate at it, you know what I mean?

Yeah, you got to have that pride, right?

In the fact that each car symbolizes the effort

and the hard work of you guys not just, it's just another car, right?

Because then the cars stop coming when they're just another car.

Yeah, but we treat them all like they're our own personal vehicles.

And for me at least, I don't have them anymore.

So I get my jollies out working on them here

because I can build them and I can be creative in each individual one.

And so can my guys, like we all like have, you know,

pretty much production meetings about each car and each single process

and like in what realm that we're doing because we all want to be creative

and we want to take the clients input and we come up with different ideas

and we veto stuff or we'll cosign stuff and be like, no, we're not doing that.

You know, like it's a very collaborative effort between three of us for sure.

Yeah, we'll usually bring the customer in and have a conference call with them.

If it's something they suggest and it's not that great of an idea,

we let them know, we talk them down nicely and we explain why.

That's not such a great thing and then better ways to go about it.

And then we implement their ideas with our ideas

and that's how we kind of build it together.

That's cool. I mean, it feels like, you know,

it would be cool to be part of a team where your ideas, you know,

maybe they're not the final say, but they go into the whole thing, right?

As opposed to if it was just Peter saying, this is what's happening and that's it.

You know, it's less involvement.

So I could see how that would be pretty cool to be part of a team like that.

So how so I'm going to ask you, but how do you get involved with this guy?

Like, how did you end up becoming part of the team in the first place?

I've actually been here for about six years now. Wow.

That's that's I mean, that's a long time, man.

It doesn't feel like it, but it's been here for a very long time with me.

Yeah, that's cool because especially, you know, whatever,

after 2020 longevity for a lot of people is a year or two, right?

So to commit six years of your life, you must, you must be enjoying it.

Most people in a corporate world, they burn out in three years and they're like,

okay, next job, next thing, next, whatever.

Yeah. So so you must enjoy it, I would assume.

I enjoy building cars, you know, we all have the same kind of mindset

where we like putting forth our best foot for a lot of the builds.

And we just enjoyed, you know, the outcome of all the cars that come in and out of here.

Yeah. So did you what?

You just like drive by this place or hear about this guy or what?

I actually have to give thanks to one of my friends

because he sent me a post that he had on Instagram like a while back saying

like he was looking for help.

So I ended up, you know, just checking it out.

I pulled up one day, I got to talk to him.

He was literally on his hands and knees and working on the sewer.

He looked like he was miserable at the time.

Just like, oh, my God, I was by myself just like hanging out like he caught me

in one of those like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, it was just a quick thing.

I was like stopping by, just checking it out.

I got the chance to speak to him about, you know, working with him.

And then we started off on like a like a part time thing

just so we could feel each other out, get an idea of how we were like meshing together.

He got to see my work ethic and just saw potential in me.

And then from there, we just kind of took off. That's cool.

Yeah, it accelerated pretty quickly after that.

And I mean, the rest is history.

And then we brought on Corey after that.

Because you were with me for at least four years at that point when we brought Corey on.

And Corey was actually an old client of mine.

OK. And so I had known him previously and he was just kind of bouncing around and doing stuff.

And I'm like kind of the same situation like, hey, I can't be painting all these cars by myself

because like I was saying, like I used to do it all lit myself.

Yeah, like I would do a lot.

Like I would do all the painting, do all the billing.

Like, I mean, just top to bottom.

So I'm just like, OK, if this is going to grow, I need to like delegate here a little bit.

Yeah, like so, which all the right people was was key to.

And I was we've been through a lot of people even before it came on.

I've been through people all over the place.

And what I've learned is just this crew works really good.

And I don't want to mess it up, right?

Because this is this is good.

Like this is for for as many hours as we spend together.

This is really good for a bunch of guys at a mechanic shop.

Yeah, for sure. Really, really good.

Yeah, I mean, you could yeah, I could tell by observing, you know,

and the lightheartedness, the seriousness about the project,

but the lightheartedness about, you know, this or that.

Like I was like, OK, these these dudes like work together, you know,

as opposed to working in the same space separately, right?

Because that's that's two different things.

And so I know Corey is is busy painting that the car.

But so you bring him on and is he immediately the paint type of guy?

Or is that something that was OK?

So I was in the middle of painting an engine bay at the time.

And I'm like, I'm like, Corey, can you just like I need some help?

And so he had he had done a little bit of painting

prior to that privately for himself and for a couple of his friends.

And and I don't mind teaching the right person.

I love actually like if you have the mindset and you're open to it,

like I would love to teach you, right?

So he's he has agreement with me in the beginning was I just want to do the bodywork.

Well, that went right out the window.

So he started doing all the bodywork.

And I'm like, hey, just you spray like this and just use it like this.

So I taught him how to do the that portion of it.

And then he took it from there.

Like he was he's a Corey's extremely intelligent, very, very quick learner.

He took he just took it around with that.

He's still to this day doesn't he'll confess he does not like painting.

OK, but he loves the sand shit.

He's like, I'll get the paint on there.

But you know, he's very modest.

So he's actually an excellent painter as well.

He's excellent. He's very, very, very good.

Especially for as young as he is and has as long as he's actually been doing

a profession, he's excellent. That's cool. Excellent.

He's he's even better at bodywork. Yeah.

But he has the processes down now and all of the things that the co-lesson.

He's an excellent painter.

So it sounds like essentially he came in with ambition

and now he has a skill that could carry him through life as far as a career.

Right. Bingo. Yeah, which is which is cool.

And especially, you know, being like, quote,

unquote, the boss as as far as you, that's a good feeling to know that,

you know, a guy came in looking for an opportunity and he got it.

You know, he could have squandered it, too. Right.

He could have, he could have just been like, whatever,

and like not seen that opportunity.

And that's happened to us a ton of times where we're, you know,

we try to, I try to give everybody that leg up, you know,

and we try to give people that opportunity because this is a really good

opportunity, whether it's in, in the website, I've tried to do it with that.

I've tried to do it with like social media.

I've tried to do it like all in different aspects.

And I'm like giving you that opportunity on a silver platter.

And it's just squandered. Yeah.

It's very interesting to see and watch.

I think there's a lot of people like that, that, you know, as they say,

can't see the forest through the trees in the sense of like this

opportunities right in front of you, you just have to work for it.

But that, that four letter word works sometimes.

I think it is what gets in people's way. Right.

You have to earn every opportunity.

So, okay. So we know how Corey came in. We know how Dre came in.

How the hell did Peter get here anyways?

Like, how do you, how do you go from, you know, you're telling me a story

about your laser, your DSM back in the day, you know, how do you get

from the laser to, you know, working on what could be seen as one of

the most desirable cars in the world?

Don't disagree there.

I'll give you the, I'll give you the quick version.

Yeah. I'll give you the quick version.

You tell me to land the plane anytime.

Okay. Cool.

When I was younger, I, I enjoyed two things equally. Right.

I love music. I love playing music and writing. I love, I love the whole scene.

I love production. I love like touring. I love it.

Like it is ingrained in me forever and it will never go away as long as I live.

I also love cars the same in the same way. I love them both.

And in the early 2000s, I was in the automotive world doing similar things.

I, I'm versed in electronics. I'm versed in tints. I'm versed in, and all,

I've spent a lot of years and a lot of different aspects, but it's all been

automotive related. And I had the opportunity in the early 2000s to do

professional touring. So I did that for a lot of years, but it was never

consistent enough in the moment where I could get on a retainer or I could

like get a contract where when we were off in the summer, in the winter or

whatever, we still got paid. So it was a very like wishy washy. It was cool.

The money was good in the moment, right? Especially when I was younger,

like I was making good money when I was younger. I had no rent, had no things.

There's no responsibilities. I get, you know, like no wife, no kids.

It was like, you're probably having a blast. I was having a blast. It was great.

But it wasn't consistent. So I ended up, I was, I lived in the Northeast at the time.

I'd moved to, moved to Florida just because I needed to kind of reset.

I sold like all of my possessions. I moved, I literally stuffed it all in my

Evo and I drove to Florida and like just reinvented myself.

How old were you, would you say at this time?

Under 30. Yeah. Okay. I was, I was fairly young. I was late 20s. Yeah. I was late 20s.

And then got in the automotive field again, continued down that path a little bit.

And it just, this particular nuance, even though I was still working on in the

automotive industry, I was so just over working for somebody at that point.

I just, I started it. I just, I was like, I gotta do something else.

Don't get any ideas, Dre.

Soft, man. I, I, I, it's the best worst thing I've ever done. Of course. Yeah.

Equally. But I mean, here we are. I've been in this particular location for 11,

almost 12 years now. And I'm very proud of that. I made it past seven,

which is a big accomplishment for any performance shop on the planet.

Oh, for sure. I could name a hundred shops that came and went.

Yeah. They, they, they, they, they turn up and they, and they, they close very,

very quickly, but I'm very proud that we're at this point.

And then the GTR market, I was always ahead of that in my mind as I knew that

they were coming out. Right.

So I wanted to always position myself to be ready to take on as,

as they became legal and more legal and more legal.

So I was working on this stuff and getting these in before they were like legal.

So anything that was here, you know, we started working on them, working on them.

And we've always been, I've always been geared to do more restoration stuff.

So now that we have the clientele and the cars and the,

and the people that do the work now, now my vision for that has coalesced into

exactly what you see here in something that's, that's tangible now.

And this is exactly how I wanted to steer the ship. Exactly.

Like just work on these cars because they're really, really cool.

And there's nobody that actually works on them properly in the United States.

Period. Yeah. Like so, you know, that's probably,

and I think I felt it in, in maybe, you know, different industry, like in my life.

But that vision coming to fruition, like that vision,

whether it was 10 or however many years ago that, that you saw, like,

we can do this and then it actually happening is, you know,

next to seeing your child born is such a great feeling, right?

Like, wow, I thought this and, and I could see it and now I'm living it, you know?

And, and of course now let's, let's be real. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's be real, right? Like when you see the vision,

it's full of all of the positives, right?

When you live the vision, when it comes to fruition,

you start to realize, oh damn,

I didn't necessarily anticipate what would come with that, which is normal.

Right? I never bargained for this. Yeah.

I never bargained for what, what it took to get me here ever.

And any small business owner will tell you that in a similar situation or

similar business, you can't explain it to anybody.

And when people talk to me about how hard they work or how difficult it is,

I just, I dismiss them.

And unless you are a business owner in my same niche or similar,

because you have no idea, right? You don't know the stresses.

You don't know the updates, bro, text all the time.

You don't, you're, it's an unbelievable,

it's an unbelievable thing to be able to process as a human.

You shouldn't have to, right?

So now I'm at a point where I'm trying to unravel that a little bit

so I can have some sort of like sanity.

I've had to find things in my life that were good for me to expel my,

my frustrations and my stress.

Otherwise I probably wouldn't be sitting here today with you guys.

So it's, it could go both ways very easily for a lot of people.

And the easy way out is, you know, very obvious for a lot of guys, you know,

like, like, so you can do it in a positive way and get rid of your stress

or you can do it a negative way. I chose the positive, you know,

and it's helped me in a million different ways.

Right. Cause if you weren't doing that, he would be feeling it.

Corey would be feeling it. Your customers would be feeling it.

Imagine if I was, I'm already cranky anyway,

but imagine if I was a raging alcoholic and my custom,

everybody would feel it down the line and the business would suffer.

Everything would just go straight down down.

Yeah, you probably wouldn't be here like you said.

I wouldn't be talking to you right now.

Right. And it wouldn't even gotten this far.

I would have been done just like those guys get done in three to five years.

It would have been that quick. It happens like that.

So where you said we're 12 years deep of HD works.

So, you know, just, just to elaborate on that, you know,

for the guys that are maybe not seeing the full picture,

what would you say has been the biggest challenge operating

this business like to date?

Like what is the one thing that pops out in your head that's like,

this is like my nemesis or was cause maybe you conquered it, you know,

type of thing, but what would it be in, in this business?

There's always new challenges every year, every week.

There's always something, right?

But the biggest things, two things it's in no particular order, money and people.

Right. And like, like, like team. Yeah.

And those you can't, I can put out resumes and I can go on indeed.

I can take courses. I can like, I can talk to Gary Vee. It doesn't matter.

I just have to have the right, the right team here.

And especially this niche of thing, like that we do these cars, right?

You've or if it was Evo's or anything, you have to have the right team on board.

You can't, I can't just hire an ASC guy. He's going to be useless.

Right. I can't hire a dealership.

Guys can be useless.

It'll take me two years of training him to just get like competent

to a point where I'm comfortable letting him rock on these cars by himself.

Makes sense.

Even though there's nothing like complicated about them, there's just nuance about them.

Half the time people don't want to use their brain to figure problems out.

Like simple tasks.

It's like you look at something and because of the part doesn't exactly bolt on, they give up.

And these, these have no manuals, like none of these cars do.

And I remember like that. We didn't have manuals.

We were all kids and we were messing with this stuff.

So you have to think on your feet.

You have to be able to like use cognitive reasoning and like problem solving.

Like this is, this is all it says.

Like I taught me this years ago, this is just it's two things.

It's time management and problem solving. And that's it.

Every single car on this earth is the same.

And when you look at the, the, like the engine and the components, right?

The power trains the same.

You have a transmission, you have a rear end, you have brakes, you have ignition system,

you have electronics, whether it's new or old, you have a handful of things.

It's all the same.

It's just how the engineers put them together.

So when you kind of take a step back and look at that, people get so focused on

what that like particular model is and like, well, I don't work on anything else.

Well, then, okay, what, like, what are you like, like, like, okay,

you're useless to anybody, you know what I mean?

Like we could work on anything, right?

Because we're so versed in problem solving.

Like we just don't want to.

Right. Yeah, you just don't want to work on an Audi, right?

Right. Yeah. And it's not efficient.

We've become efficient at this.

And that's when you start to really make, I wouldn't say make money, but like,

progress easier on ourself to get stress levels go down.

You're not doing new projects.

You're not like trying to reinvent something different or like, like it's the same

stuff, even though they're all different bills, but we have a process for it.

And that's what makes it enjoyable for us where we can, we can, okay,

this is still the fuel system.

It's the same as when we did last week, but it's on a new car, new, new vision,

new whatever.

So it's like you, you basically, you found your recipe.

You're just changing up your ingredients depending on the customer's flavor, essentially.

And we're not for everybody.

The way we build cars is not like how other people build cars and that's okay.

And I like that.

Yeah. I don't like, you might not like my sandwich.

It's okay, you know, get prosciutto down the street from somebody else.

It's okay. That is okay, right?

It just, it just didn't match your flavor.

Yeah, I'm cool with that.

So Dre, when, you know, thinking back, you know, six years, that's,

that's a lot, a lot of time, right?

I would assume you're in your early to mid 20s when you came on.

So you've seen cars come in and out of here, in and out of here.

Is there a build that you had your hands on that stands out like the most to you

that not to say you're like the most proud of them.

I'm sure you were proud of everything that you do.

But that one that was just like, oh yeah, we did this one.

I mean, the, the first one that I'd say that I was fully proud of would have to be

that silver or 33 that's right behind you.

The customer found us after visiting Kraft buying the car.

Yeah.

He was, you know, just like browsing around looking for like somebody to work on

the car and who made the most sense that, you know, meshed with him pretty well.

Um, his taste in the car, he was like, he gave us a picture of kind of how he wanted it.

And we talked to him about it and we came up with like a good recipe for it.

And that ended up being one of our biggest tickets on the, on the, on the scene pretty

much like everybody walks up to that thing and they love it.

Cause, um, we ended up doing a, um, Tropical Glitz, Miami Beach, Engine Bay

color for the valve cover.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I saw it.

Yeah.

Everybody loves that on the silver goes crazy.

Yeah.

Um, outside of that one car, I want to say the next car that is probably up there is

that red 33 with the sequential on it.

Yeah.

That thing is a monster drive.

Is that the one that you were just backing out?

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

Yeah.

It, I mean, it sounds awesome too.

It, that it, that is cool.

I mean, so right.

I mean, I'm sure, like I said, every car that comes out that you put your hands on,

you're proud of, but, you know, right, you got to have, you got to have a favor.

There'll be some favorites.

Yeah.

Sure.

What about you?

I mean, I, I could probably guess maybe, but what about you?

Um, I do like, I was, I think, I think the silver car for both of us has a really

good spot of heart, not only because we love the car, right?

And we, and we love kind of, um, what it did for us a little bit.

Um, but we love the client as well.

Um, we really liked it.

He's amazing.

He's always, he's always stood up for us.

He's always been in our court, which is, which is huge, right?

This is a lot of heart in that car.

So that'll always be, that'll always be special to us no matter what, right?

It's kind of our first love a little bit.

So, um, I do like that sequential car.

Um, I'm very proud of the yellow car, Justin's car that we did.

Um, that's what I was gonna guess.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm very proud of it because it was a proof of concept for me as a business

owner that, um, for lack of better terms, I can't shit on that.

Like I can do that.

Like I can do that really good.

Like, like we as a team can like kill it.

And that's not even our best work by far, by far, but we can, we killed that car.

And it was, it was clapped.

It was probably like the, like it was, it was a terrible example of the 33.

Probably one of like, like grade R.

It was probably one of the worst ones.

The caveat, it wasn't rusty.

So that was it, but it was clapped.

It barely ran.

It was, it was awful.

And the transformation from that to that, it was such a beautiful proof of concept

for the shop here that it was just, it was incredible.

So, um, and, and again, the client, like every time we have a good client experience too,

like it's just, that's just as important as the car is.

You know, we become friends.

Um, you know, even though sometimes the, I try to, the friends thing with, with cars

is a little rough over the years, but you have to, you have to really watch what you do.

But, um, Justin, he's always been, um, in our court again, just like,

just like, uh, Jose and Silvercar, he's, um, great, great people.

And they've always looked out for us always.

And, and man, I sometimes, I think that's more valuable than anything that we do here

is, is that type of, um, camaraderie, camaraderie when we, when we build the cars,

because they're just as excited as we are at that point.

And I mean, I can, you know, it's hard in, in this type of industry compared to others,

but when you get those like heavy brand loyal customers, like that, that really feels good,

right? Because you know, at that point, you've created something that people can identify with

and represent as if it were, were their own, you know, and so when I can just imagine,

when you do get those customers and you get that feedback and you get that support,

it is kind of like one of those, all right, like we, we're doing something right here.

These people can identify with us like that.

And they fall in love with the cars too. They do, they really do.

And they, and they, um, if it's, depending on if it's their first car that they built with

somebody or not, and a lot of the times it is, they, they get to this point and I see it in

almost everybody where they, um, let the process happen and then they have such a good time in like,

like having that, um, just watching it come alive and watching us do our thing and like

trusting the process. And it was like, yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, I, I watched them just like,

they turn a leaf and they're like, okay, I'm just going to let it happen. And that's when

everything just goes, and it's like, it's so cool because everybody's on the same page

and all the vibes are good. Like it's across the board. So cool. It's so cool to watch.

So that was kind of my, my next thing that I was thinking. So,

you know, and I, I can imagine, right? Because I myself, I've had, uh, cars built places and

you know, I don't know. So how do you avoid or deal with the customer who feels like

you are not prioritizing their job and you are not meeting their self-imposed mental deadlines?

Yeah. It's hard. Um, I haven't figured that out yet.

I can imagine. We do our best. Um, I will say, uh, you know, here publicly that we do our best to

literally make everybody as happy as humanly possible. Um, I, I'm human. Things fall through

the cracks sometimes. I do my best to update people, but sometimes it's hard, man. It's very

hard. Like if there's physically nothing happening, me texting you every week that nothing's happening,

I don't want to do that. It's like, I don't think there's any value in that. I don't, I'd rather,

I'd rather say, Hey, I haven't talked to you in a little bit. Appreciate you. Whatever.

Here's a list of stuff that we've done so far or, or check out this new stuff. I just don't,

or the opposite. I just don't have anything for you. I hate letting people down. I hate

disappointing people. And it's a very, it's a very hard thing to do. So we are, our only

saving grace sometimes is, is setting expectations as best as humanly possible up front.

So nothing really gets twisted. Um, but even then it's hard. It's hard to wait. It's hard.

It's hard to be patient. Some people are extremely patient. Some people are not.

And we try to figure that out ahead of time because we don't want to make a bad experience

for anybody, for any, any client type, right? We don't, we want to make sure that we set

expectations. But I mean, at the same time, like I feel that we're building cars on a level of,

like that you would wait, uh, like we don't build conics here, right? But we build some

very high quality stuff that takes thousands of hours.

Bang. So it's a lot thousands of hours and a lot of hours that we don't build for a lot of

hours that are, that are thankless and a lot of hours that, that just get like, they're just

going to the, the universe somewhere. Um, because we want to do the extra little things and we want

to do that. And I let everybody do it because I think it's the right thing to do. So they just

again, like this is where the projects become, what they become. Um, and that in that, in that

moment, you know, so, um, um, we try to build them as fast as humanly possible, um, and meet

everybody's expectations as best as we can. Um, and I think we do a good job. And I think, honestly,

we are ahead of most shops when it comes to the level of builds that we're doing as far as time

frames, when you really actually do the math and look at it. Yeah. Um, it might, it might not be,

um, ideal, but you know, these cars are complete, window out, restorations and performance builds

at the same time. And we're really, we're, we're very efficient at it, but like to build a car in

it and any car, like go build a car, I go build a Chevelle in less than three years. Right. I,

I, I wish you luck without sacrificing quality. Right. And they're half a million dollars. I

should be charging a half a million dollars for the stuff that we do here because it's, it's

good, if not better than that type of stuff. We are doing that now. We are building modern classics,

just like your dad built his Nova and he built his Chevelle. It's the same exact thing. Yeah.

Exact thing. Um, just the body panels fit better because it's like, yeah. Yeah. It's a new wave of,

of that type of thing. It's a same time period, um, shift, right? It's all 30 years old. It's

the same exact thing. We're doing the same thing. So go build a Nova for less than half a million

dollars. That's like show worthy. Right. Good luck. No, you won't for sure. Okay. Well, what does

a CS car cost? Like, like 750. Yeah. Okay. Within a year. Exactly. So shut up. Relax. You're getting

a value here, like an absolute value with us. And it was done in the US. And it was done on US soil

here. Yeah. Like yesterday, like, you know, like not like 10 years ago, we're, and then you still

have to restore it because it was stored like shit. Yeah. You know, so, um, when you look, when you

really look at the big picture, I think there's a lot of value that we have that is underappreciated.

And we're trying to like build brand awareness of like, that's the level of things that we do and

the stuff takes time. We're waiting on vendors, waiting on motors, waiting on, on this and waiting

on that. And, and unfortunately, I have to be the brunt of the, where's my shit, bro? Yeah. And I

just don't know. And sometimes we just don't have answers, man. You know what I mean? And just, I

will promise you it'll get there and we will finish it. It's just a matter of time. And I mean,

you know, especially if you're into these cars, you already know the state of,

the state of the whole kind of Japanese import industry, right? We're getting slammed with

tariffs. We're dealing with dwindling supply chains. We're dealing with parts that haven't

even been produced in 20 plus years or have been discontinued. You know, so in that sense,

you know, the, the end user may not understand like, Hey, dude, we had to search for this for

20 hours before we could even find it for you, let alone get it here. You think we build for

that? Right. No. And that's part of the, and I make, I make, I make 5% after you swipe a credit

card, if that, on the part that you can find on Alibaba. Right. And then you get mad that it's

the same price. Right. Yeah. I mean, it is a business. I should be charging you double.

Right. Honestly. You should. I should be charging you double and you shouldn't cry about it. I'm

period. Like, realistically. Your markup should be more. Because I'm not a piece of shit. Like,

I'm a nice person. I'm like, I wouldn't want that done to me. I'm a smart consumer. I would find it

on the, I'm the same way. You know what I mean? Yeah. And we're trying to honestly, not to steer

this, but that is the biggest bottleneck that we find right now, building these cars is, is, is

finding parts in a, in a reasonable amount of time, because I can't run a business around

all when is Nismo going to release this or that? That's not a business model. Right. That's a hobby.

Right. You're not a hobbyist here. This is a business and that's how this place operates.

So when my vendors don't have stuff, I'm pissed. I curse them out because I can't run a business

like that. When the price changes because of tariffs or whatever. It's like, it's some problem.

Yeah. Because I quoted you 100 bucks. Yeah. Now coming back to you and I look like a dickhead

because it is 150 now. Right. That's not, it's not a suck of business. Yeah. You know what I mean?

So. And it's out of your control. So I got to sit there and be like, hey man,

because I have to eat it. I have to, Pete has to write the check. And then that, and hopefully

the client is, is a good person is like, yeah, no problem. I got you. Yeah. It can easily go the

other way. Oh, for sure. And then on top of that, just have a bad client experience because Pete's

true and I'm mad. Like I get bills, I got bills from FedEx all the time. Yeah. After the, after the

lands. Yeah. Forgets here. They're like, oh, by the way, DHL will, DHL will give you the bill,

not tell you what it's for, demand that you pay it or they're sending it back. I won't even know

what it's for. They'll be like, yeah, it's 800 bucks. I'm like, for what they're like, I don't know.

It's a box. Yeah. Better pay it or it's going back to somewhere. Yeah. So yeah, it's like.

And that, that is hard. I had, so real quick side story. I purchased a VSpec two hood from

Dubai and they assumed whether it was FedEx, Customs, whoever they assumed it was metal,

but it's carbon fiber, as you know, they're still, they just go steel. Yes. Yes, exactly. And I'm

like, no matter what's in it, you know, good luck fighting it. Yeah. No, they, they did or were

supposed to refund me. And thanks for reminding me. Actually, they were supposed to, yeah.

Ain't gonna happen unless you've got a team of lawyers going after them. Yeah. The only way.

Yeah, that. So, right, tariffs are a big thing and that's something you weren't dealing with just

a year ago. You know, it got really bad. So, okay, I have a question because I'm personally

curious about this. And I know if I'm personally curious about this, then there has to be,

you know, people listening that are also curious. So you mentioned earlier, you know,

you guys are doing window out restorations, which is, you know, for the most part, the

that is the highest caliber of restoration, you know, because you ever moved everything,

including the windows from the cars. So we, we all know sitting here that finding a GTR

rear or front glass, I mean, shoot, even at this point, the side is super hard. What is,

like, so if I bring my whatever 34 down to you and you're doing a full restoration,

will I need to be, or will you need to be finding those parts? Or do you guys have a

process to where you can reuse certain pieces of glass?

Luckily, we have a good glass guy. Trace chuckling. It happens that they break, right?

Yeah, of course. There are good glass guys. We, we, the yellow car was a perfect example.

That car sat for six months because I couldn't get a bad glass because the guy broke it and he

gave me one of these. He's like, well, I told you it might break. I'm like, cool, man. I guess.

I guess. I guess, right. So they can break. He told me, like, it's okay now. Like,

saying like, you know, with all due respect, anyway, I'm still gonna pay though. I'm still gonna

pay though, right? You're still gonna pay me to take it out, right? Right. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah.

Standard, standard in this business. But yeah, luckily the 34 stuff is way more available than

almost anything else. I can get glass for that. Quarters are pretty available. 33 is very dwindling.

Some of the moldings are discontinued completely now, like the outer molding. So we do a lot of,

we've fancied up a way to make them all nice again. We have our workarounds for stuff that

you can't get. I see. The clips, we've pretty much sorted everything that we need to sort

to restore the cars on the large scale. I see. The glass itself, unless it's broken,

is usually either polishable or restoreable. Okay. Right. So you can get the gaskets still.

The 33, 32's you can't, I don't think, but the 33's and 34's you can, you get the glass gaskets

and stuff. So the belt moldings are discontinued. So, you know, if they're really bad, but we try

to import or have cars brought to us that are of a particular standard. Makes sense.

It makes our jobs a lot easier. Yeah. Because we don't want to work on a rust bucket, right?

Because it's sometimes easier just to find another shell and buy another car and swap

this stuff over. Time-wise, like it's not worth it. Like I don't want to. For us or the customer.

Yeah. You're going to pay, you can pay me $2.50 an hour to swap, to like do rust work.

Right. Yeah. For what? And it's still not going to be like it was. Like if I crash where my wife

hits anything, like for our cars, if it's like a quarter panel, I just get rid of the car.

I have a problem because it's... I have a problem. The car's not original anymore,

but it's not how it was. That's not why I bought it because I want it the way it was.

I don't want it fixed and it sort of was the way it was. I want the car. So we find really good

examples from select importers that are here in Florida. We work with a bunch of them.

So you can come to us and ask for something and I can procure it for you through my channels

or I can point you or they will... Craft is a really good example. H-Bonds is a really good

example. They both get really good cars and we work really well together because we want to

work on stuff that's nice. Yeah. It makes sense. Like bringing over nice things.

Right. And they have the same mentality of let's just bring over nice stuff. So it works.

Yeah. Let's skip all the bullshit and just bring something nice over. And so I was going to ask

you that knowing about itch bond and craft being whatever within two hours of you craft

and itch bond down the road, right? So are you getting referrals from them? Is that kind of

that type? It's not as ancestral as you make it sound maybe exactly, but I have mutual respect

for them and they have mutual respect for us. That's cool. And same thing with like

Burdo and Rav. We send each other work. We kind of bounce it. We work together because it's really

there's like five people. It's much easier to be friends with everybody. You know what I'm saying?

Chris has really nice cars. People ask me all the time, hey, can you find me a 34 or whatever

it is? Chris, what do you got? He's got X, Y and Z and I kind of just help facilitate that.

And usually if it's good for Chris, him and I have worked together long enough to know like

he knows what I want and you won't even like team me up anything that's stupid.

Yeah, makes sense. Because I can't sell that under my I can't put our name on it if it's

a certain way, right? Unless it's like totally clear that this is a shit box and like that's

you know, I just won't sell it. It makes sense. I can't again, I can't bring anything underneath

the brand. Yeah, and it really just creates more of a headache for Dre out there doing some of his

stuff, more of a headache for you trying to price out this car that needs all this work that you

never really even needed to do type of thing. Correct. Yeah, people don't get it. We see all

the time that people saving 10 grand on a $150,000 car. They're like, oh, I got a deal. Well,

you spend a 30 to get it back to where you're going to just spend 10 on a much nicer one.

Been patient one more week and that one car will just pop up. And just you'll get the nice one

right off rip. That's true. Right off rip. But the impulse of thinking you're saving money actually

hurt you. 100%. Wow. 100%. So go ahead. 10 fold. Yeah, a lot more than someone would think, right?

Like, oh, it's only 10 grand. I must be getting a deal. But like you said,

then you're spending 30 to get it just to that level.

Let's say if you don't buy it with me or through us or Chris or H-E-Bunt, just

please have somebody go look at the car actually. If you think you know how to,

you're going to be a big importer now and you're just going to do it yourself, fine,

do it yourself. But have somebody foot on the ground. Look at the car. Yeah. Look at it.

Feel the quarter panel. See if they got rolled in. See if there's stories about the car where

you just, I mean, be a sneaky smooth. Look at the thing. Use your eyes. Like, okay,

that's clapped. That's clapped. Why is this this way? Why is it that way?

You know, if it's got rattle cam black all over the bottom of the car?

Yeah, that's it. That's like immediate red flag, right?

Red flag. They just love to put that enamel on the car. You love it. As soon as I see that

average consumer, because some of the Japanese people do a really good job at that black enamel.

Like they actually do a good job at hiding this stuff. So to, you know, your, your first timer

or your average person, it's like, wow, this thing is in amazing shape. Like how did that?

It's literally probably what comes out of their mouth, but little do they know underneath that.

Right. It was actually, it was, it was pretty beat.

Let's stick on a pig, man.

Bushings are actually blown completely out and then they'll just put RTV around it and be like,

make it look. Oh, wow. That's pretty bad.

We see some wild stuff. Every car has a different story and it's like,

it's, we've never seen the same thing twice. That's for sure. And it's all like, oh, that's new.

Definitely have different brains out there and they're like, well, what other way can we do to

like screw the guys who are giving us cards or just to get, to get through the inspection,

right? To get through the grading process. And, you know, and it's funny because in our niche,

it's like Japan is regarded in this insanely high, like Japan is like the epitome and then we're,

US, Australia, wherever England are all below it. But the epitome of Japanese shops is 1%

literally. And the rest of it is like, what can we do to get it through the inspection or the

grading process? Just like, just like there in the US, there's a handful, that 1% of really good

shops. And then there is 6 million other shops and tinkerers, tons of them. And just keep in mind,

they've been tinkering on that car for 30 years. They do a lot of tinkering and it's been sold to

homeboy to homeboy. And like the boys got this and that and the other thing they were, I mean,

they were cheap, basically like our DSMs, like to find them now in any sort of good shape is a

small miracle. Yeah, that is very true. I mean, with what you're saying, to find a 32 GTR in amazing

shape would be like finding a first gen DSM in amazing shape. Like a garage. Right. That would

literally be it. But for some reason, we think, well, there's, you know, there's 150 skylines,

34 sitting in garages, just being stored their whole lives waiting for us to buy them.

The only, I will say this, and this is again, I don't know if this is true, but I will say,

the only guys that probably have done that and they saw it like the way I saw it,

like becoming legal and stuff like that is craft. As far as allegedly, as far as I know,

they have a massive stockpile of stuff and they've been buying stuff for years is what I've been

told. And so they have the humongous collection of them that and they just send them over on top

of their normal auction stuff. As far as I know, again, allegedly, buying quality stuff for years

and years. Well, yeah, I know that that is the truth for, so I don't necessarily understand

the relation between the Naples craft sport and the Japanese craft sport. Is that like,

is that one company or is that two companies? I don't know the ins and outs. As far as I know,

I think there's a relationship there between the two. Because craft sports in Japan,

yes, they have like the cars that you're like, how the hell do you even have this in such clean

shade? They've been doing it forever. Right. Makes sense. They, they've been doing it since

those cars were, were not old, right? Since they were new. And collecting them back then. Yeah.

And now they're, they sat on them and now they're like, cool, let's sell some. Yeah, let's sell some.

Yeah, for sure. But that is, you know, even regardless having shops like them in Ichiban

here in Southern Florida, like that's sweet because there are a lot of guys that are operating

that don't necessarily have that near them, you know, to very reputable, very attention-detailed

sellers, importers, whatever you want to call them, that they can actually kind of reference to. So,

you know, that's pretty cool. So Dre, 32, 33 or 34, like what is, what is the ultimate skyline

in your opinion? Honestly, from structural standpoint, I'd say like a 33, 34, 32 is every

time I see them, the frame rails are folded. Yeah. Like to pick them up with forklifts over

there, don't even care about them. Yeah. Easier to work with for customer's budget,

33 is all day, 34, sometimes people just can't afford them. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, they're

not for everybody, you know what I mean? Like you just stick in the budget that you want to be in,

so you're comfortable. You don't want to be living out of your means. Right. Yeah, for sure, which

is easy to do with these cars. Let's just say that, you know, taking, you know, any GTR from

base horsepower to 7800 horsepower, that's not cheap, no matter how, well, I guess maybe it could

be cheap, but does it last, right? So to do it professionally, it's not cheap. You can, you can

garage it cheap, right? And like, and that's what we see when they come over, they're garage cheap,

right? They put, you know, weird computers and just weird gauges. That's how we see them come

over. I don't think you and I have yet to see one that was actually professionally done, like

correctly, like we would do it or similar in just in different ways. I don't think we've

ever seen anything like that. So there's ways to do it. We just, again, we have to do it professionally

in that no matter whether it's 32 through 34, they're all the same price to do them the same

exact way. Right. I mean, which is great, I guess, you know. So, okay, so for you, Peter,

single turbo or twin?

I like the singles for two reasons. One, they're easy to work on. Well, three, much less heat in

the bay. And just the power potential is way greater. Right. Now, if you're doing something that

you're trying to do a stock format or an OEM plus like with the stock twins, they both have their

place, right? And we can do different turbos, we can do our twins, our techs coming out with twins,

like there's definitely gaps that are getting filled in that space for the twin stuff. Yeah.

But again, like, and that comes down to the clients when we talk to them, like, what do you

want? Like, some guys are like, I want twins. That's it. Period. I don't care. Yeah, I'm that guy.

Cool. I got you. That's fine. It's okay. And that's great. It could be because there is a place for

that. Yeah. Totally a place for that. Because they look cool. And that was what came with it. And

like, you know, yeah, for sure. And like, and of course, if, if you were like a Japanese tuning

fan, especially back in the day, it was never a single turbo. So that kind of got ingrained

into your head. And, you know, one of those type of things, but fully agree now that the

technology and the methods are there for a single turbo, your opportunities are so much more

broad than sticking with twins. Even top mount twins are still hard to get what you're. They look

efficient. Double the parts, double the, double the everything, double the fail points. And we

will have to build them professionally. So I can't build you something that I'm going to worry

about breaking later. Right. So usually 99% of the time we go to the singles, unless it's twins,

and we like have to sit there and like dot our eyes and cross the T's and make sure they're

absolutely perfect. Oh, and there's just no space too. There's no space for yeah, because we don't

want to have to like replace gaskets or do anything because it's a nightmare. And I'm sure

you have to take the ABS unit out when you do those up like top mount twins. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

right, you're doing a lot of, I guess, extra work to almost get less in the, in the long run, right?

But, but again, if that's what you love, right, and that's your thing, then

you can work with it, you know, it just, it's just may not be the most efficient, like you said.

There's an, there's an, or a seat for every everybody, you know, like you can build it

however you want to build it, you know, we just, we sit down and we talk to you beforehand about

that type of stuff. So, so let's just say, right, I bring you my 33. I say, Peter, I just want,

I just want a modest 600 horsepower. Do what you do. What is, and that this is stock, what is

your recipe for that 33?

If you're okay with singles, we would do a G35 900 all day long, usually with the R-Tec.

Is that a Garrett or? Yeah. Okay.

G35 900, a head package. I like to build a head. Some people

cry about it, but I'd like to build a head. I make sure there's valve train in there and

plus one valves and go through the head. You can do VCAM if you have the budget for it.

That will definitely, it definitely helps the car a little bit.

That's something you would suggest. Yeah, it's great. It definitely works, especially

for street cars. And again, like we, we don't build drag cars here. We build street cars.

Yeah. We build really, really, really nice street cars that probably shouldn't be driven on the

street, but they do. So G35 900 electronics fuel system. Okay. Suspension breaks all the basic

stuff. Yeah. Leave the, if the block is good, we always take them out anyway, because nine times

at a 10, we'll do an engine bay or something like that. Yeah. And so like the oil pump, replace it,

and put it back together. If the block is good, we just, we just kind of send it

at that, at that level. We just try to stay under six, because that's kind of the magic

number where the pistons like to fall apart in your brake ring lenses. With stock block.

Stock block. Yeah. And, and like that, like the silver car, that, that's, that made 630.

Like that's on, on E and it, it spools instantly way better than, way better than the twins do.

Spools literally, and that's not VCAM. It's just an intake cam in advance.

That's another thing that even if you don't want to do VCAM, just do an, just, you could literally

get away with just doing one intake cam in advance at about 70 degrees. Not even a trigger kit?

Well, that's included with all the electronic stuff, but you know, we do a full

Haltech or Motec, whatever it ends up being for the guy. The Motec's usually a little bit

overkill for street stuff, but um. So would you prefer Haltech, like is Haltech, like who you use?

If we were building a more serious drag car, okay, like the data with the, with the Motec is much more

valuable. Yeah. For the everyday street guy, the Haltech is perfectly fine. Yeah. Like there's

nothing, there's nothing that it's, it's going to fall short on by any means. We either do an S3

or an R3. They both have all wheel drive control built into them now. We used to do it, I used to

do it with like tables, but you can, I do it with all the software is built in now. So you can have

rear wheel drive, you can do more now and I can do it all on a button. Okay. So everything's

integrated. It's modernized. You can either choose to do a dash or not do a dash. Some guys love the

dash. Some guys certainly say, I need the HWM. Okay, cool. Yeah. Whatever you want to do. Full

fuel system, two pumps. Two pumps. We either do, yeah, because at that point, you're going to,

you're going to lose, you're not going to have enough fuel to get to 600 no matter what you do.

Okay. Okay, you're going to run out at some point. So, and then we kind of future proof all of this

stuff. So if you wanted to build a block next year or the year after, all we would literally

have to do is turn it up. Okay. Yeah, that's cool. Your fuel system is done, your electronics is done,

your triggers done, your suspension, like the cold car, whether it's restored or not, it's done.

And that's your entry level. You build a block, pop it in the car,

you drive it away. And that's a very short term thing at that point. I see. So we try to get,

we try to do that stuff and get you back on the road as soon as possible.

So essentially, let's just say with the fuel system, you would use larger injectors, dial them down

a little bit so that if you came in, build a block, you're literally changing. Changing nothing.

And I'm a big believer in just putting one injector set in. You don't need to buy

750s and then buy 1200s and then buy 1750s. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life,

just buy 1750s or the 1350s from ID. That's it. They are fine enough to the idle perfectly,

no matter what, and that'll support up to a thousand horsepower. You're never going to,

you just buy one injector for the street stuff. Yeah, makes sense.

Anything pass out, you're going to need multiple sets of injectors anyway, right? But

under 40 PSI, I mean, there's just buy one injector. The resolution is so good on them,

and you can dial them in. There's no need to buy a small injector for idle and drivability stuff.

Right. I mean, I guess that makes sense. These companies, whatever like injector dynamics or

whoever it may be, have figured out that it's not 2001 anymore. Correct. Right.

That was a big thing. Like in the Evo's and DSMs, we'd buy like, okay, man, let's,

I had 550s. All right, I need 750s. It's true. And then I like make two clicks on my little

computer thing and I get my palm pilot out. It's like the craziest thing in the world.

But it's not like that. The resolution is so good. They're very expensive. The injector is

like absolutely expensive. For sure. But they're worth it. You buy them once, right? You're not

buying three sets of injectors. So what we love to try to do in that 600 package is get you prepared

to do whatever is humanly possible next. Okay. So you don't have to undo anything. I don't need

to be like, Hey, man, you're gonna have to do the fuel system now. Right, right.

Needs a prize. You need to do the trigger. Okay. Now, hey, man, no, just, just rip the band

it off, get the shit done because, and it ends up saving you money because I don't have to go

into the car again and again and do one more project. Right. One more project. I'm just,

all the parts are there. We check it in the car. It's it's the same for all platforms.

You pay, you pay upfront to be able to have the expandability in the future.

We'll have to change anything. So on this 600 package, let's say, are you guys touching the

transmission drive line at all? It's good. On the five speeds, right? Yeah. Even on the get

drag sixes, it's still, it's fine. Yeah. I would just inspect the axles and make sure the seals

are good and right. It's not ripped or whatever. Yeah. Cause that's the first, that's probably one

of the first things that's going to happen once you get it out on the road and start putting

600 down. The boots go, but we don't really see actual snaps. The only time, again, we build

nice street cars. So like these guys aren't launching it. Okay. These guys are just driving

them around, making them make noise and like, you know, like, and like, whoa, they're getting a

jaw enough. Just like I would, I do like two or three rips and I'd be like, yeah. And then I,

that's it. I'm good for the day. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And that's all that, like there's,

we're not building to get, to get launched and get to get abused, right? If that's the case,

we can talk about that. We can put axles in the car. We can put that stuff that the stuff's out

there to do it. Yeah. Right. And we, we can do it. We're building one now, but like 98% of the

people are like-minded like we are. And we just like to build really nice street cars. So at 700,

800, the stock axles are fine. Unless you're like launching and being ignorant. Of course,

stuff's going to break. Of course you're going to break a gear on the train. Of course you're

going to do, of course you are. But if you just roll into the stuff and you're, and you're not

driving at like a 16-year-old, yeah, of course. And these people aren't. We're all adults at this

point. Anybody who's really buying these cars at this point are all adults who loved them in the

2000s and just couldn't afford them because we were kids. Yeah. Just like their dad wanted,

could afford to build their novo when he was old man. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Same thing. Right.

It's literally, again, the same exact thing, just a different time shift.

I mean, yeah, that, that makes sense, right? We're just in the next wave of it, you know.

So it's like, you know, in 10 to 15 years, are these younger people going to be looking at us?

Like we were looking at those older people, you know, like, dang, you put all that money into

that thing? I don't know what they're going to be driving with. Well, yeah, I guess they won't

have much room to talk, you know. There's no cool cars in here. They're going to be sitting at a

charging station like, man, I can't wait until I'm fully, I can start driving. Yeah. I gotta,

get the starter pack. You know what I mean? Dray. So, you know, there, there are probably,

there are thousands of guys that would love to be in your situation, believe it or not. Right. I

know when, when you're here and you're grinding day in and day out, it's hard to think about how you

might be sitting in a situation that there are plenty of people behind you that would love to

be, whether they could or not. That's a different story. But if, if you had to, you know, give a

whatever 20 year old advice on how to get into a shop like this, a place where you can work on

cars that you love and be surrounded by that daily, like, what would you tell that guy? Like,

how does he, how does he get there? Where was it? What's the mindset to be able to

actually get to a position like you? Honestly, I'd probably tell him to just start working on his

own stuff. That's like the best place to start. You don't have to worry about who you're not

keeping safe on the road. It's not even anywhere near professional level. It's literally just

taking apart your own car, trying new parts, seeing how it reacts to the parts that you installed

and learn new things and then just keep going from there. And that's probably the best place you

can learn anything about the performance side of this industry. Screw up your own shit. Yeah.

Because then you're not, you're not worried about somebody chasing after you because like,

you made their car safe for somebody's kid or something. You know what I mean? Like,

it's your own thing. So it's like, you put yourself in that situation. That's another

lesson you can learn. Like, none of it's bad. You're all, you're figuring out every step of the

way and it's better to mess up on your own car than someone else's. Oh, for sure. The bill is

only to yourself. Exactly. The worst thing you gotta do is tow your car back to your

crib or something and then fix whatever part broke. That's how we all learn, man. When I first

pulled up to this shop, he saw me. I have the same car still. I mean, let's just park in the garage

because I'm smarter now and I have a daily, but I was daily driving a 91 240SX and it had a JZ

swapping. It was probably my first personal build and that was like a big thing for me where I was

able to learn a lot on putting that chassis together, changing all the suspension, like putting

the swap in myself, doing the wiring, like just figuring it all out. And I guess that really

showed him my kind of like want for this, this build and this like lifestyle and I enjoy building

cars. He saw that in my car itself when he saw it out front of the shop.

And then he was kind of impressed with it. He's like, okay, I can see that. You know what you're

doing. You're putting this car together and it's not broken down on you or whatever yet.

You got here, right? Yeah. I'm able to drive that everywhere. I was driving it to Tampa. I went

to FL2K and the thing. I've driven to Orlando a few times and the thing had no problems.

Yeah. It takes a special person to be able to put a car together like that from scratch,

especially with stuff that's not meant to be together and then to have the balls to like

drive it and then like figure out all the bugs and all the things that break on it.

You have to have the wherewithal to like fix stuff on the fly, like listen and like

be cognizant of like your build, like the thing and the electronics. And again,

like we were talking about, you have to think about every single system that breaks and the

intercooler and the cooling system. Oh, sure. That was one of the first things I did. I did Z32

brakes on the thing. It was like, I'm not playing around with these stock slider kind of breaks.

Yeah. And it makes sense because, you know, not everybody has like you said,

the balls to tear apart their car, you know, which obviously at this time in your life,

it's not like you have like a bunch of money. So if you mess it up, like you messed up your car

and that's it. So to have the confidence to complete a project like that on your own,

yeah, it's like kind of a big deal. They don't have to go that crazy off for it.

I mean, they can start by installing a blow foul or something. Yeah. It's anything that they'd,

you know, see is a good thing to install in the car. I would never tell anybody to put,

you know, something that's going to make the car run worse than it is. Or, you know,

something that they have to take somewhere and get professional work done if they're still learning

on stuff. Don't start with cams. Yeah, don't do that. I mean, you can't, you're just going to

other side of things, right? Because, you know, anybody who grew up like us, right? Like having

a shop working on legends, like this whole thing is this like dream, right? As obviously it was

for you at one point. And so there are still so many guys out there like that with the ambition.

They just want to do it, right? They still see it as possible. What would you tell the guy who

comes to you and says, Peter, I want what you have. Get your checkbook. You can start tomorrow.

Listen, everybody wants instant gratification. But this is not that. Nothing in this world,

no matter how, what business it is, is not that everybody, everybody says, man, it's really nice

where you're at. Or this or that or the other thing. Like when you get to that point, and I

don't even think we're at that point, I still feel like I'm not there. I don't think I've arrived by

any means as stress of the imagination. I'm in the trenches for sure. Still, like there's no easy

days. But there's a lot of rewarding days. And it is valuable. But if you want to do it, just have

a goal, like have a set. I don't even say business plan. I didn't have a business plan. I just had

a direction and a firm grip on the wheel. And I wanted to steer it in that direction. That's

what I wanted. And I didn't visualize, I didn't say affirmations, but I put it out there. That's

what I wanted. And I wanted to do that. And I believed in myself. And I believed in my guys.

And I believed in the process. And I can't tell you how many people told me you're doing the

wrong thing. You're doing the wrong thing. Don't do long term stuff. Do short term stuff. Do like

exhaust and stuff. I'm like, that's dumb. I don't want to do that. Right. I can't tell you how many

times people tell me that, like over and over over the years, like, don't do that. It's dumb. You

never make any money. I'm like, yes, I will. Yeah. Yes, I will. And small stuff isn't fulfilling

anyways. I don't I don't want to do that. I go work at a dealership if I want to do that. I don't

want to I don't want to do that, bro. And so we didn't. And that's not what we are. We are exactly

what we set out to be is nothing more than that. So you just have to believe in it wholeheartedly,

like without without a question, you're going to doubt yourself every day. But that's not

that's different than believing in your vision and what you want and standing up for what you want

and your standards and like we have standards. And I taught that to all my guys and and they

believe it like I believe it. And there's no stunt unturned. And like it transfers through

everything. And it's really it becomes like a place where you can just be yourself here.

And nobody's going to tell you nothing. And it's a proof of concept like we did it.

Like we did it. Yeah, that's cool. You know, so.

But it took a long time. That's the big thing, right? It takes forever. Some guys like like

they have this like thing overnight and it just happens to get popular and like blow up on YouTube.

Like that's why I never wanted to be on YouTube. I hate it. I think it's the cringiest thing on

the planet because it just puts people that have no business talking about anything car related

in the spotlight where people like, oh, man, he is the the the goat for that.

Yeah, I've been doing it for six months, brother. Relax. Yeah. Okay. Like you are not the goat.

Okay, chill. Like and and I'm not here. I'm learning something every single day. I'm learning

new processes and trying to absorb information and I'm I'm dumb every single day. But I'm trying

and I'm learning and I'm learning and I make tons of mistakes all the time. And but that's

okay. That's how we learn, man. Yeah. And to say that we don't make mistakes, it's just ignorant

that we do. But every shop does and every person who wants to grow themselves, they're going to

make mistakes and that's okay. And it sucks and it's going to cost you a shitload of money.

Especially at a professional level, it just gets worse and tickets get bigger and bigger and bigger.

But if you can get through that and just believe in yourself enough to just push through,

it comes. It just comes, man. It just comes when you just let it let it be, it just comes.

Like you said, there's no, there's no manual, right? The mistakes and how you handle them become

the manual over time. There you go. It's how it's how you handle it. It's how you handle those

mistakes, right? You can be bummed and you can and it sucks and you can be in that moment.

That's okay. But guess what? You're going to put your pants on the next day and get over your shit

and you're going to you're going to move on and you're going to fix it and the customer is going

to be mad and do this or that, but you're still going, you're, I, we are going to do the right

thing. No matter what that is, no matter what it is, and that's the most important part, right?

Nobody's going to be able to say shit ever because we always do the right thing.

We're going to leave it. We're going to, that, I think that's the best closing statement that

you could have had, man. Like that speaks volumes about your brand and what HD work stands for.

You know, it's not about just getting the car out and getting to the next one.

It's the opposite of that. Right. Exactly. So yeah, I mean, dude,

I agree from what I've seen. I've spent two days here and what I've seen is everybody in the building

just putting their best foot forward and trying to do exactly what you're saying, put out the best

product without rushing it and without overtaxing a customer based on your mistakes. And, and I

think that, you know, a lot of aspiring shops that have even been in business for five, six years

could learn a lot just by listening to this episode and understanding that mindset instead of the,

come on, hurry up, get it through. Let's go. Let's go type of thing, you know.

The worst thing you can do. Yeah, for sure. And I'm sure there are plenty of guys that

could tell us stories about that type of thing. Peter, or no, okay, let's actually start with you.

Dre, where can we find you on the internet if we want to follow along with you?

I'm not actually posting a lot, but I mean, the only social media I use is Instagram.

2j.dre is 2J Dre. Oh yeah. Hey, man, when you're busy helping create beautiful skylines,

I get it. You don't have all the time to just sit on Instagram and post, right? I get it.

Unfortunately, this man kind of has to because it is part of the business. Like,

if you were operating this 25 years ago, you'd never even have to think about,

did I post on Instagram to, whether it's expand my brand or just make people happy that follow us.

But since you do have to, where can we find you on the internet?

At hdworks on everything. On everything. So, Instagram, the website is hdworks.net.

The guy won't sell it to me. You won't do it. You won't do it. I've tried for 10 years.

Don't send an email to the.com and it won't get to me. On YouTube, Instagram, Facebook,

it's all the same at hdworks. It's really hard to not find us.

Oh yeah. I definitely, I know that you guys are busy. I can see it with the plethora of cars in

here, but I appreciate you both taking the time out of the day to just share your words with the

audience and, you know, do your thing. Likewise, ma'am. We're very excited that you were here

and we got to be able to find the time to do this. We can't thank you enough for helping us with

doing some graphics for us. So that was a huge thing to do. And it was a very,

very heartwarming thing to have somebody do for us. Nobody does us favors ever, ever.

And I will say that that meant a lot. That was just to be able to, yeah, I'll do it. Yeah,

cool. Like nobody does that for us. Yeah, I just wanted to hang out here, man. Honestly,

I figured it was the only way you guys would let me. Nobody throws us a pizza party. You know

what I'm saying? So I really appreciate that. I mean, I know Joe does. I know what he does.

For sure. Next time you're done, we'll make sure Corey gets on here. He's just in the middle

of painting. He can't stop. So yeah. No, hey man, I mean, he's banning a beautiful car. I would

rather not interrupt that, you know, even though I'm sure he would have livened it up quite a bit.

It might have got a little weird, but you know. All right, guys, we will catch you next time.

But for this episode of the Right Hand Drive Guys podcast, I'm Bobby. This is Peter,

Andre. See ya. Take care.

About this episode

HD Werks in Boca Raton gets the spotlight as the Right Hand Drive Guys tour a shop built around long-term, nut-and-bolt restorations and performance builds. Peter, Dre, and Bobby break down how a tiny team handles everything from wiring and tuning to engine assembly and suspension, while subbing out interior work and relying on trusted glass and import partners. The conversation covers the real bottlenecks—money, hiring the right people, tariffs, and parts availability—plus practical build philosophies like single-turbo “street” recipes, managing expectations, and avoiding “cheap” clapped imports.

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Original notes

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In this episode of the Right Hand Drive Guys Podcast, we go live from the shop floor in Boca Raton with Peter and Dre from HD Werks — a place where some of the cleanest and most dialed-in Nissan Skylines in the country come to life.

Peter has spent over 12 years working on Skylines, building a reputation for precision, consistency, and deep platform knowledge. We talk about what it takes to keep these cars running at a high level, the evolution of the Skyline scene, and what separates a good build from a truly great one.

From day-to-day shop life to high-end builds and problem-solving on rare JDM platforms, this episode gives you a real, behind-the-scenes look at one of Florida’s go-to Skyline shops.

🎙️ From the shop floor to the street — this is where Skyline expertise is built, one car at a time.

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